Shanghai unveils plan to boost trade in services

Shanghai is expanding overseas access to computing power and foundational artificial intelligence models to boost the city's trade in services, with a new plan setting a goal of increasing the sector's scale to more than $300 billion by 2030.

Experts said that the move would help make AI a new growth driver and strengthen the city's role as a global trade in services hub.

On Monday, a plan to build Shanghai into a national demonstration zone for service trade innovation and development was unveiled.

Jointly released by seven departments, including the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, the plan sets a goal of increasing the city's service trade volume to $270 billion by 2027 and surpassing $300 billion by 2030.

The plan calls for the development of service trade related to the AI industry, attracting global companies and institutions to establish AI R&D centers, open-source platforms and joint laboratories in Shanghai, and building an open innovation ecosystem.

Coordinated development

Zhong Junhao, secretary-general of the Shanghai AI Industry Association, said that for the first time, the plan incorporates the coordinated development of the AI industry into the broader framework of a city's service trade development, marking the use of computing power as a new growth driver for the sector.

"Encouraging companies and institutions to establish AI R&D centers, open-source platforms and joint laboratories in Shanghai is essentially an opening-up of both the import and international cooperation sides of trade in services," Zhong said.

By bringing talent, code, research facilities and open-source communities to Shanghai, he said the city can create a platform connecting international institutions, multinational R&D units and local innovation communities within the same network.

On July 16, 29 countries signed an agreement in Shanghai to establish the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization. Headquartered in Shanghai, the organization is officially positioned as an independent intergovernmental international body focusing on capacity building, alignment of rules and standards, application cooperation and global AI governance.

The trade in services demonstration zone plan includes measures to accelerate headquarters development and explore governance, adding institutional support for Shanghai's international AI cooperation, Zhong said.

Complete ecosystem

Addressing a news conference in July, Chen Jie, vice-mayor of Shanghai, said, "Shanghai has now built a complete development ecosystem that integrates independent innovation, application-driven growth, open collaboration, ecological synergy and security governance."

According to him, Shanghai's 394 AI enterprises above the designated size, each with an annual revenue of at least 20 million yuan ($2.96 million), saw their combined industry scale exceed 637 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 39.5 percent, making AI a new growth driver for the city's economy.

The plan outlines 27 key tasks across six areas, covering industrial and supply chain upgrading, innovation in new business models, stronger business competitiveness, more efficient supply, higher-level opening-up, and mechanisms to support both domestic and international development.

Qi Xiaozhai, vice-chairman of the Commerce Economy Association of China, said: "In the past, we placed greater emphasis on trade in goods than on trade in services, especially service exports. However, in recent years, service trade has grown much faster than goods trade. Last year, the value of service trade reached 8.08 trillion yuan, up 7.4 percent year-on-year, 3.6 percentage points higher than the growth rate of goods trade."

"Domestic consumption of services, including catering, entertainment and leisure, has also grown faster than the consumption of goods. Against this backdrop, China has developed new advantages in service trade, particularly in emerging digital technologies such as AI, big data, cloud computing and blockchain," Qi added.

By 2035, China aims to establish around 35 demonstration zones with leading service trade scale, concentrated high-end resources, strong innovation capabilities and significant regional influence, he said.

The country will foster a number of internationally competitive service export enterprises and key service industry clusters, while forming a development pattern in which service trade, investment, consumption and industries are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, he added.

wang_ying@chinadaily.com.cn